Just Say Please
by BastsCleopatra
Summary: Sometimes, just one little word can make all the difference. This is what James Potter is going to find out, one stormy night. LJ. Short ficlet.


Just Say "Please"  
  
Lily Evans, Hogwarts Head Girl, high-tempered redhead, and unattainable to one James Potter, walked down an empty corridor. She was daydreaming, her favorite practice during these long, stormy nights when she had to make sure no underclassmen were out of bed.  
  
She wasn't paying attention to where she was, or her surroundings. Lily was daydreaming about the future. She was no diviner, so she didn't know what was in store for her after Hogwarts. Little did she know, this night's events would spark a series that would seal her fate forever.  
  
Without warning, Lily was surrounded by at least ten people, with their hoods pulled over their heads, and their wands out. Lily stood stock still. This is what I get for daydreaming.she thought. Lily never was a person to take a situation like this lying down, so she pulled out her own wand, ready to fight.  
  
"Oy! Prongs, look here!" Sirius Black, best friend of James Potter, beckoned him over to where he was looking at a nondescript piece of parchment.  
  
"What is it, Padfoot?" James inwardly smirked at the nicknames he and his friends had come up with in fifth year. He ruffled his hair in the way that drove most girls crazy, and sat down next to Sirius on his bed.  
  
Sirius gave James the map, and pointed to a lonely corridor. "Looks like your girlfriend is-"  
  
James playfully shoved his friend. "She is not my girlfriend!" he defended, but the rosy tinge on his cheeks told otherwise.  
  
"Whatever," Sirius smirked. "Look," he said again.  
  
James examined the parchment, and his light blush turned into a crimson of anger. Without a word to his friend, James leapt off his bed, grabbed his wand, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him to the scene.  
  
Meanwhile, Lily was doing just fine. It didn't seem as though the perpetrators had thought this attack out very well, and were attacking her one at a time. She hadn't been selected as Head Girl for nothing.  
  
She was taking them down with ease until one of them hit her from behind. She felt white-hot pain, and dropped to her knees. The pain was spreading through her entire body, ripping her apart. Let me die. please, just let me die.  
  
Summoning the deepest reserves of her strength, Lily struggled to her feet. Her knuckles were white, gripping her wand. Slowly, she turned around, and pointed her wand at the person behind her. With the last of her strength, she gasped, "Expelliarmus!"  
  
The wand sailed to her feet, and she fell back to her knees. With her free hand, she grasped his wand, determined not to let him have it again.  
  
Her eyes were clouding with liquid. Whether it was tears or sweat, she didn't know. All she knew was that they were closing in upon her, but the pain wasn't as intense anymore. She got back to her feet, marveling at her own strength.  
  
"I must admit, mudblood," the tallest commented with a slippery, malicious voice, "you do know how to fight. But you'll never be strong enough to beat us all!"  
  
James ran. He was seeing red. All he knew was that he needed to get to Evans. His whole body seethed with anger. How dare they?! That was just low, even for Slytherins.  
  
Finally, James turned the corner, and saw them surrounding a jaded Lily. Even from a distance, he could see the fight and resolve shining in her eyes.  
  
As he got closer, he heard one say, ".admit, mudblood. You do know how to fight. But you'll never be strong enough to beat us all!" he laughed the laugh of an insane person. "Die! Avada-"  
  
"EXPELLIARMUS!" he roared. The person's wand flew to James, and he caught it. "What do you think you're doing?!" James had never been so mad before.  
  
Lily turned to him. "Potter! What are you doing here?!" Her voice cracked. She knew in the back of her mind that she should be grateful, but this was her unofficial nemesis and number-one annoyance coming to her aide.  
  
Before he could answer, and another one of their famous quarrels ensued, someone hit Lily with a curse, and she fell to the ground, unable to move.  
  
James forgot the question, and said the counter-curse. He ran over to help Lily up, then stood in front of her and faced the Slytherins.  
  
"You'd better run," he said simply, his grip tightening on his wand. The one who seemed to be the leader smirked under his hood, and threw a curse at James.  
  
"Protego!" The curse was deflected, but by Lily, not James.  
  
Lily had finally made some sense of what was going on. She pushed in front of James, and hit the leader with a curse.  
  
She faced James. "Potter, I do not need you to protect me! What do you think you're doing here?!"  
  
James was now getting even angrier. "What am I doing here? Protego!" he repelled a curse thrown by someone in the group. "What does it look like? Expelliarmus!"  
  
"It looks like.Impedimenta! You're 'protecting' me, when I don't need - Protego! -to be protected! Especially by you!" Lily countered.  
  
"What is that - Locomotor mortis - supposed to mean?" James asked, indignant.  
  
"It means exactly how - Stupefy - it sounds!" Lily yelled.  
  
"Well, Evans, it doesn't sound like it's supposed to!" James yelled back.  
  
"How is supposed to sound, Potter?!" Lily shouted.  
  
"Well, maybe a little gratitude is in order?" James suggested.  
  
"Gratitude for -" Lily started. She looked around them. They had taken down most of the Slytherins, without even knowing it. The rest had run off, either from fright, or to tend their wounds. On impulse, Lily started laughing uncontrollably.  
  
"What are you laughing about?" James asked, thoroughly confused and irritated.  
  
Lily tried to stifle her hysterics. After a few moments and several gasps of breath, she told him plainly, "Nothing."  
  
James sighed out of exasperation. Of course, he thought. Leave it to a woman to be maddeningly vague. Leave it to Evans, in fact.  
  
Lily started towards the nearest unconscious Slytherin. She looked at his arm, which had been broken, and was now sticking out at an unnatural angle. She sighed. "We'll have to take them to the hospital wing -"  
  
"Help them?!" James exclaimed. "But they were trying to kill us! And now you expect me to help them?!"  
  
Lily looked at him critically. "So you expect them to just stay here and die, is that it? That's just like you, Potter, I should have known. I should have known you would be so self-absorbed." She spat out the words like venom.  
  
"I am not self-absorbed!" he cried, indignant.  
  
"Oh, yes you are!" contradicted Lily. "You have been for as long as I've known you, at least."  
  
"How can you say that?! I've tried to be nice to you-"  
  
"Nice to me? You call hitting on me and asking me to go out with you at least twelve times a day is being nice?" Lily put on a look of disgust. "You really do make me sick, Potter. I'll be glad when this cursed year is over, and I won't ever have to talk to you again, you bloody prat!"  
  
Lily jabbed her wand a few slightly comatose Slytherins, levitating them in the air. She turned around to take them to the hospital wing, but James stopped her.  
  
"Move, Potter," she said threateningly.  
  
In the back of his mind, he knew he really shouldn't poke the very cross dragon, but he still couldn't resist. "I still don't understand why you're taking them to the hospital wing," he said.  
  
Lily took a deep breath, trying to calm herself and not blow up once again. She said in a strained voice, "Potter, I'm going to put this in terms your egotistical mind can comprehend. Now, tell me which would be worse for us: Filch finding several unconscious Slytherins, and having to explain why. Or taking them to the hospital wing, and saying that we found them, and they must have been in a disagreement."  
  
James thought about this, and suddenly had a new kind of respect for Lily's devious side. However, in the time it took him to register it, Lily was already walking away.  
  
"Hey, Evans! Wait!" She turned around.  
  
"Potter, pick the rest up, already! I'm not going to make two trips!"  
  
James did so, and caught up to Lily, walking beside her.  
  
"Hey, Lily," he started. Lily looked at him, an eyebrow raised, and a look of either expectation, or surprise, James couldn't tell. "Why won't you go out with me?"  
  
Lily stopped, and turned to face him. "I should really think it obvious, James." James beamed when she called him by his first name.  
  
James waited, but Lily just stared at him, an eyebrow still raised, now waiting for him to do what, James hadn't the faintest idea.  
  
"Well. er. Will you go out with me?" James took a shot in the dark.  
  
Lily sighed. "No, Potter!" She started walking away again.  
  
"Please?"  
  
Lily stopped, and turned around. She had a satisfied smile on her face, and James thought she never looked prettier.  
  
"Now, was that so hard?"  
  
"You-you mean you will?" James asked, astounded.  
  
"Yes," she said, still smiling.  
  
"Because I said 'please?'" James asked.  
  
She nodded. "That was all you had to do. Just say 'please.'"  
  
A/N: Ok, I know you're asking why Lily just suddenly had a change of heart. I'm going to give you four words to that. Mood Swings, Fan Fiction. The End. 


End file.
